


don't try; can't fail

by hoosierbitch



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Multi, Nightmares, Polyamory, Science Bros, driving down memory lane, in a sedan, salads, tequila bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 10:32:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoosierbitch/pseuds/hoosierbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s only three of them in the tower for dinner, which isn’t all that unusual. Just Tony, Pepper, and Steve. Clint and Natasha had gone off with Coulson to do some super-secret spy shenanigans (or maybe just off to have lasagna at Coulson’s place; Tony has yet to figure out the trio’s patterns), Bruce had run off to India to—his words—buy some good tea, and Thor’s in Canada with Jane, probably having loud, enthusiastic sex and scaring off all the moose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. you can go home again (even if you're driving in pepper's sedan)

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: There's references to the violence that's taken place in canon, characters dealing with depression, and nightmares. Please contact me if you have any questions.

Steve started it.

That's Tony's story and he's sticking to it. Not that anyone's actually questioning his story, which is weird, because a) he's not used to people believing him, and b) it involves sex. So really, Tony's the expert in the tower. Except for maybe Natasha, but he's not going there. (...except in some fantasies sometimes, but come _on_ , he's got photos of her posing in lingerie from when she first worked undercover as his assistant, and even if he has wiped the images off his hard drive, he can't wipe them off his _brain_. Probably. Yet. He's got a project down the line that might be able to do that. Anyway.)

Steve started it.

*

There’s only three of them in the tower for dinner, which isn’t all that unusual. Just Tony, Pepper, and Steve. Clint and Natasha had gone off with Coulson to do some super-secret spy shenanigans (or maybe just off to have lasagna at Coulson’s place; Tony has yet to figure out the trio’s patterns), Bruce had run off to India to—his words—buy some good tea, and Thor’s in Canada with Jane, probably having loud, enthusiastic sex and scaring off all the moose.

"Tony's got some memorabilia you might want," Pepper says to Steve, who’s sitting across the table from her. Pepper’s still in her power suit and doing that weird thing she does sometimes where she spears her food without ever looking at her plate. She's like River from Firefly, only with salads and cutlery instead of guns. "His father collected a lot of things from the war. Didn't he, Tony?" Tony nods obediently because he’s used to blindly obeying Pepper when she’s in CEO-mode.

"He was obsessive about it. There's probably toenail clippings in the attic of our old place," Tony chimes in. Steve looks grossed out. "I'm not even kidding. Sources of your DNA were highly sought-after commodities for a while."

"Right," Steve says. Steve, unlike Pepper, stares at his plate a lot. The food's not even weird—Tony had JARVIS switch the food delivery preferences from cutting-edge culinary trends to Italian places and diners that served good ol’ fashioned American food. (In completely related news, Dummy’s been working overtime in the lab filling Tony up with smoothies.)

"Howard also collected a great deal of your personal belongings," Pepper adds, glaring at Tony and gesturing at Steve with her fork.

"He missed you," Tony says, searching his mind for small talk to make (and even though thinking about Howard still pisses him off, he doesn't want to make Captain America sad. Or make Pepper angry). "You, uh. You were close?"

"We were in the war together," Steve says tentatively. "He made weapons that saved a lot of lives." Tony can feel his throat closing up a bit, because the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Stark Industries stockholders had made similar arguments to Tony when he shut down weapons manufacturing. Steve's quiet words are more convincing than the rest of the US military had been combined. "And he made—well, he made me. And he taught me a lot. Just like you're teaching me," Steve says, with a smile at Tony. Tony grimaces back uncertainly. People don't smile at him the way that Steve smiles at him; he never knows what to do. "I was a fish out of water back then, too."

"Pepper helps teach," Tony says hastily. "Pepper, talk about your helping. Now. Please."

Pepper takes a sip of her wine and takes over the conversation effortlessly. Tony looks at the last cherry tomato hiding in the salad on his plate and stabs it.

*

Because Pepper is relentless and Steve has the convincing powers of a sad puppy, a week later Tony finds himself on a road trip, headed to his parents' old house, to trawl the attic for Steve’s old belongings. (Out of a fit of pique Tony hadn’t invited Coulson, although Pepper will probably bring him something anyway, because the two of them have become ‘work friends.’)

No one's been in the house for years. Tony'd been the last one in the building, closing the huge double doors behind him and winding chains and a padlock between the handles before getting in his Jag and driving off to MIT. His parents died, and put three houses, a billion-dollar business, the family’s personal funds, and Tony’s care in Obadiah's hands.

Tony still has the key to the padlock on the door, but he’d lied, back in New York before they’d left, and said that he'd lost track of it a long time ago.

(He keeps it in a lockbox. It survived when the rest of his home went over the cliff in Malibu.)

He’d put bolt-cutters in the boot of the car to get them past the chains on the doors, but Steve just squeezes the lock and it falls apart in his palm. _Show off._

The door opens with a creak and reveals a dark, cavernous entryway. Dust has settled on all the surfaces, but when Tony finds the light switch and flips it on, the tastefully placed chandeliers that still have some working bulbs unevenly illuminate the room. (He's tempted to start singing something from _The Phantom of the Opera_.) The furniture in the entryway and nearby receiving room are covered in dust cloths and the artwork has been removed from all the walls.

It looks like a ghost’s house. Tony expects to hear Jarvis’s voice scolding them all for not wiping off their shoes before they entered, even though now the only footprints they’re leaving are marks in the dust: Pepper’s stilettos and Steve’s boots and Tony’s custom-made Gucci (which _do not_ have lifts built into the heels. They’re just modified to better accommodate the suit. Really.).

The house is too empty. He'd auctioned off a lot of the furniture and art and put the proceeds towards the Maria Stark Foundation.

"It's a beautiful house," Steve says, turning in a circle to take in the architecture of the foyer. "It's very...big."

"Yeah, I hear that a lot," Tony says. Pepper slaps his arm.

"What did I— Oh. _Oh_. Very funny, Tony. Haha." Steve's not quite got the hang of sarcasm, but his deadpan works just fine. Tony glares at Steve, who grins back at him.

"Where did you store Howard’s things?" Pepper interrupts.

Steve looks at her curiously. "Don't you already know?"

"I've never been here before," she says, holding his hand. "I've only worked for Tony for...what, six years now? Six years this August."

"You seem like you've been friends for longer than that,” Steve says with a smile.

They've been friends for less time than that, actually. The transition from employee to friend had been delayed by Tony's obliviousness (and, whatever, dependency on substances or self-centered-ness or some other inconsequential detail) for a good four years of that time.

Steve’s probably the first person who hasn’t been employed by Tony or assigned to him by the military who’s become Tony’s friend. Acquaintance? Teammate is probably more accurate. Tony reminds himself that he doesn’t need friends. Except for maybe Bruce, but Bruce is more like a lab partner. Bruce likes Science. Tony’s given him a lab and a place to live that has reinforced walls and floor and ceilings and hopefully one day Bruce will stay.

"Pepper's only after me for my money," Tony says with a sigh. Steve walks past him into the house, bumping Tony's shoulder playfully as he goes. Tony stumbles, because, _ow_ , goddamn serum. Steve doesn't notice but Pepper holds Tony’s hand as she pulls him into his childhood home, so he doesn't make a big deal out of it.

He shows Pepper and Steve to the attic, which is basically just a giant storage room, climate controlled, well-lit, and huge.

"Have at it," Tony says, gesturing at the stacks of boxes. "I'm sure it's in there somewhere."

"But... _where_ in there?" Steve asks.

“Beats me. The movers did all of this. I’m not cut out for manual labor.”

Pepper sighs. "Let's get looking."

"I'll be right back," Tony says. "Just gonna duck out to the loo." He leaves Pepper explaining to Steve what a _loo_ is. (Poking Steve with modern references had only been fun for so long; Tony’s moved on to bigger, more multicultural vocabulary.)

The house is quiet. He’s used to that, though; he’d walked these halls a lot after the servants had gone to sleep.

He finds the back staircase, the one almost no one had used. He doesn’t turn on the lights because he doesn’t need to; memory and his blue glow lead him. He exits one floor down, walks down two hallways, and stops at the fourth door on the right.

It’s not locked. There’s dust on the handle but the hinges don't make a sound when he swings it open.

Inside he finds a four-poster bed, neatly made, with perfectly positioned pillows. His mahogany desk is clean but there are gouges scattered over the lacquer. It had never been clean when his parents were alive. Maria had pestered him to clean up after himself; Howard hadn't noticed. Tony had swept all the junk into a box and brought it to MIT with him when he moved out.

Dummy's propulsion system had been built in this room. Tony's fascination with Captain America (and accompanying realization about his flexible sexuality) were born in this room.

Tony had been alone, a lot, in this room.

He'd had a nanny until his parents died. Jarvis (Jarvis Mark 1) had kept him company, but always at a distance. Tony's JARVIS acts like a butler too. He takes care of Tony and doesn't call him by his first name.

He goes back upstairs, makes space for himself between Pepper and Steve, grabs a box, and sets his Stark phone to blast classic rock while they work. He's supposed to be helping Steve get acclimated, after all.

*

The first thing they find are some of Steve's old combat uniforms. Then reels of film, commercials and movies, most of which have been transferred to digital by now. Steve doesn't care about those.

They find his original enlistment forms, and Tony crows for hours about Steve's dishonesty. Steve takes it in stride, but Tony can't quite reconcile the perfect specimen of manhood in front of him with the height and weight listed on the forms.

They find pictures of the Commandos and two scrapbooks full of newspaper clippings. Steve flips through them randomly until he comes across Bucky’s obituary, then he puts them back in their box, which he sets aside to bring back to New York with them.He does keep a collection of dog tags  out. There’s an old set that had once belonged to Steve before he’d been reissued some new ones, and every single set that had belonged to the commandos except for Bucky’s. Bucky’s body, unlike Steve’s, has never been found.

In one folder they find charts: Howard's search grids, estimates of the crash trajectory projections, background information about the Red Skull and speculation about the items that had gone down into the ice with Steve.

Most boxes are full of things like curtains and dishes and bedskirts, small worthless knickknacks and cooking utensils.

In the back there's a box of Tony memorabilia that the nanny must have put together. Steve finds the box and pulls out Tony’s elementary school report cards, and then asks, "When, exactly, did you make JARVIS?"

Tony pulls the yellowing paper from Steve’s hands. Tony's straight A's and comments about his erratic behavior are on one side, "Good job, but keep working! ~Jarvis" is written on the other.

"I made JARVIS the AI when I was twenty-nine. Jarvis the butler was probably born...well, about the same time as you, I'd imagine."

"You named your AI after your butler?"

"Yeah," Tony said, grabbing the box, putting the cards back in it, and shutting it before Steve can dig anything else out. "Alfred was too cliché.”


	2. dream a little

Pepper never met Howard, but she’s made some assumptions based on information gathered. 

Tony surrounds himself with an AI and robots and retreats to them when he feels unsafe. When she offers him human comfort—hugs and words, flesh and voice—he hesitates before deciding how much of it he can handle. (Sex is different. Sex he knows. Cuddling, not so much.)

This is how Pepper knows Howard: the legacy he left Tony killed hundreds of thousands of people and Tony drank himself into oblivion for the years in between losing his parents and getting lost in Afghanistan. She does not think that Tony has recovered from either loss. 

Here is what Pepper knows of Maria Stark: she liked jade jewelry and riding bikes. The legacy she left Tony is one he’s kept strong, one he’s fed, one that flourished after she died. Pepper wishes that she saw more of Maria’s influence in Tony life and less of Howard’s.

She has never seen a happy or candid photo of Howard or Maria with Tony as a child. She’s seen some in magazines: Tony in little business suits, holding onto a grown-up’s hand, not smiling.

Pepper knows Maria in Tony’s real smiles, and Howard in their hesitance.

*

 

They don't stay in the house overnight. They pile Pepper's car (Pepper's car, which is a sensible sedan, for god's sake) with the boxes that Steve and Pepper want to bring back to the tower, and because it’s late they spend the night in a motel. It advertises its color televisions and air conditioning on a giant yellowing sign. 

"I'm going to catch a disease from the bed," Tony announces, standing in the middle of the tiny room, surveying his temporary domain. Steve settles down on one of the double beds and bounces a little. 

"Seems all right to me." 

"No complaining," Pepper calls from the bathroom. "We’re a half-hour away from the nearest four star hotel, and they’re already booked up. So unless you want to sleep in a janitor's closet at the four seasons, this is our only option." 

“If we were in a janitor’s closet there would at least be some bleach to huff.”

“Bleach to what?” Steve asks. Pepper crosses over to him, pats him on the shoulder, and tells him that he doesn’t want to know. 

Tony recognizes the look on Steve’s face as his Remember to Google this later expression. “Huff,” Tony says, because he doesn’t like it when Pepper thwarts his attempts to alienate Steve. He explains the burn it causes, the high that follows, the availability of the substance and the good and damage it can do.

“Why do people do that?” Steve asks, horrified. 

Tony opens his mouth to answer, but Pepper beats him to it. “They do it because it’s better than the alternative.” 

Tony shuts up and doesn’t slam the door to the bathroom when he goes to brush his teeth. 

 

*

 

Tony dreams about Afghanistan, which is a nice change, because it’s been New York and the wormhole for a long time, and to be honest, Tony had been getting bored of the same terror every night.

None of his suits rescue him, because he’s taught them all not to. Taught them all the pattern of his sleep and breath and dreams, and programmed a safety zone around Pepper that all of Tony’s creations now respect. (Pepper still sometimes flinches when the suits are around and Tony thinks, I must have terrified her, thinks, I wouldn’t have made these changes if she had stayed in my bed that night.)

No suit rescues him from this nightmare, but that’s okay, because he’s woken up from the dream of Yinsen waterboarding him to find Captain America holding his arms and asking if he’s okay. He wakes up from one nightmare into another, and then Pepper wakes up too and he realizes Oh, okay, so this can get more embarrassing. 

His lungs are tight and his body aches for the suit to fit itself around the reactor and shield it and him from the rest of the world, from Steve and Pepper’s prying eyes. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” Tony says. “It was just a dream. I’m fine.” 

Steve lets go of him. Tony looks at the white bands around his biceps. “Sorry,” Steve says, gesturing at the Tony’s arms, which are flushing dark as blood starts circulating there again. “You just…you wouldn’t wake up.” 

Tony knows the sounds he makes when he has nightmares because JARVIS records everything, so he knows exactly how mortified to be. “Sorry,” Tony says. “Won’t happen again. Everybody go back to sleep. Show’s over.” 

“But it will happen again,” Pepper whispers, scooting further up the bed and sitting with her back against the wall.

Tony’s lungs tighten. 

The memories from the dream are fresh: 

They had tied him to a chair and tipped it backwards. Put a cloth over his mouth and poured bucket after bucket of water over his face. He doesn’t know how long it went on. JARVIS says that sometimes his nightmares last all night, but Tony doesn’t think it lasted that long the first time around. He thinks he probably would have died. The battery holding the shrapnel at bay would have stuttered, stopped, run out of power trying to keep pace with the speed and panic of Tony’s heartbeat.

“I’m sorry,” Tony says, to Pepper instead of to the room at large, because Pepper’s the one who would have been in danger if she’d woken him up. “It’s getting better, though, isn’t it?” he asks.

He knows what Pepper’s going to say from the twist of her lips and the sad expression of her eyes.

“Right. Okay. I’m just—” He gestures at the bathroom but then realizes that everything in the bathroom involves water, and gestures to the door instead. “I’m going to take a walk.” 

He untangles himself from sweat-soaked sheets, evading Pepper’s grasp, when Steve says, “I dream about the crash.” 

There's no light in the room except for the lamps in the parking lot shining through the window and the blue of the arc reactor. When he turns to look at Steve, the blue shines on his face, illuminating the trace of shadows under his eyes, revealing his hair in an atypical state of disarray. Tony makes a mental note to tell JARVIS to take a picture of Steve like this sometime when they’re back in the tower, a picture of Steve looking messed up and vulnerable and human. Then he hastily deletes that mental note because, no, he shouldn’t want that; he has Pepper. 

(Pepper, who is afraid of him.)

“I went down with the plane,” Steve says, looking down at his hands. Tony stops trying to leave the room and Pepper reaches a hand out across the covers towards Steve. “A lot of people ask about the ice. About if I dreamed all those years, which, thankfully, I didn’t. But the cold didn’t hurt as much as hitting the water did. After the impact, I—I couldn’t tell which way was up. There was, um—there was a little bit of air that was trapped in the cockpit. I managed to breathe for a while before it escaped.” Steve reaches out and taps Tony’s chest. Tony’s too startled to move away from him. “The cube I took down with me was this same exact shade of blue.” 

Tony reaches up to cover the reactor, because he doesn’t want to contribute to Steve’s nightmares, but Steve stops him (so easily; he is so strong). “Don’t worry. It’s kind of…comforting. It was the last thing I saw before the cold took over.” Steve spreads his fingers slowly, and the skin around Tony’s heart that still has feeling—the nerve endings that haven’t been fried—burns under his touch. 

“My nightmares have always been very mundane,” Pepper says. She’s tucked her legs up so that her knees are under her chin. The muscles in her arms are visible; she's strong with tension. “Silly stuff like getting lost in hallways, or showing up to board meetings without being prepared. I dreamed about looking for my keys every night for a month in college.” 

Tony wonders why she’s never told him about her nightmares before. 

He feels selfish for not having asked. 

“The worst things that happen to me happen during the day," Pepper says, her voice as hard to listen to as Steve's. ( _Hitting the water always hurts_ ). "Watching you—watching you fight, on TV screens, on my phone, sometimes through the windows of the Tower—watching you fight and not being able to do anything to help?” She shivers and pulls her hand back under the covers. "I do what I can, with Stark Industries. I do everything that I can do behind the scenes to protect you, to keep you safe, but it's when I'm awake that I live through the worst parts of my life." She shrugs and smiles at him. "I’m glad it doesn’t follow me into bed at night.”

The only nightmare in her bed is Tony. 

“Sorry about that,” Steve says. 

“Don’t apologize. I’d rather see you rescuing New York on the five o’clock news than be incinerated by mad scientists with attack octopi.” 

“That was a weird one,” Steve agrees. Belatedly, he takes his hand back. Tony’s chest—even the missing, damaged parts of it—aches for his touch. 

“I thought touchy-feely sharing was supposed to make us feel better,” Tony grouses, not rubbing at his chest because Pepper would figure out why he was doing it. 

“Well…you haven’t actually shared,” Steve says. “I mean, you don’t have to, obviously, and I’m sure Pepper already knows, but—”

“He dreams about New York,” Pepper says, which is an invasion of Tony’s privacy so deep and sharp that he wishes he had a suit on; wishes that he had a faceplate that he could snap up to hide his hurt. “The end of the battle, with—with the missile.” 

“Oh,” Steve says. 

“How’s that for self-sacrifice?” Tony mutters, because he can hold grudges for a really long time.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says. He looks even more sincere than usual. “I didn't know.”

“It wasn’t even about New York this time,” Tony says, glaring at Pepper, who looks calm, like always. She looks like she’s listening, and Tony feels that cruel twist inside of him that he wishes he could outgrow. “I dreamed about Afghanistan,” he says, because if he’s hurting, he wants Pepper to hurt too. “I was held hostage there,” he tells Steve, “for months. They broke my ribs, spread my chest open, and hooked me up to a used car battery. They tortured me until I agreed to make weapons for them. They—they’d unhook the battery, sometimes, or threaten to drop one of the wires into the water, when I—when I tried to fight.”

Pepper looks shaken and Tony grins. “You don’t get to know everything about me,” he says to her, vindicated and victorious in his quest to get back at her. Tony’s more than willing to cause himself pain to get back at Pepper for telling Steve Tony’s secrets when Tony had fought so hard to give them to Pepper in the first place. 

Now there are four people who know about Tony’s nightmares. (Tony includes himself and JARVIS in that count.)

Steve reaches for the arc reactor. He probably wants to touch it again; the man’s developing a fetish or something. Tony lurches to his feet. 

“I’m taking Steve’s bed,” he says. “You two can share. That way I won’t wake anybody up.” 

“You can stay,” Pepper says, at the same time that Steve says, “Don’t leave.” 

“I almost killed her,” Tony says, because Steve doesn’t get it and Pepper’s kinder than she is smart. “The last time I had a bad nightmare one of the Iron Man suits thought I was in danger—I thought I was in danger—and I almost blasted her through the wall of our bedroom.” He’s panting, he realizes, and he’s backed himself up against the wall. Steve’s hands are raised in a gesture of harmlessness but Tony can’t help reaching up to the arc reactor, covering it as much as he can with just his flesh and bone. “I could have killed you,” he says to Pepper, who looks so small; too brave. 

“But you didn’t,” she says softly. “And you’re not going to do it again.” 

“Sleep with Steve,” Tony says. “At least for tonight. I’m not—I can’t—” His breath is gone and his fear hurts and there are too many ways his heart can stop working. 

“I’m going to push the beds together,” Steve announces, in the silence filled only by Tony’s frantic breath. “And then I’m going to sleep in the middle of it. You two can do whatever you want.” 

Tony stands in shocked silence as Steve moves a dresser, the phone, and a lamp out of the way, and then shoves the double beds together. Steve moves his pillows around, tugs his blanket into place, and settles himself in the middle of the double beds like it’s the most comfortable place he’s ever been. Like he doesn’t dream of crashing and suffocating and freezing often enough to have catalogued and ranked the separate fears. 

“He’s not going to let you hurt me,” Pepper says. “Come to bed.” 

Tony walks to the opposite side of the bed, slips under the sheets, and pretends to sleep until the sun rises. 

*

She loves Tony like she loves all her valuable things: completely, carefully, and joyfully. 

Stark Industries is hers and she knows its shape and moods and reputation; she knows how to make it move and grow and bend to her will. She knows all the major players on the financial and industrial scenes, both allies and enemies.

She loves the art collection that she's been rebuilding ever since Tony gave away her last one (in his defense, he'd been dying; in her defense, she'd selected almost every painting that hung on Tony's walls). She knows the artists' names and biographies, she knows the details about the type of canvas and paint they'd used, the intricacies of geometry and color selection that made each piece unique. She knows how each painting makes her feel when she stands barefoot before it and breathes.

Her love for Steve reminds her of the first Haustenburg she'd stumbled across. It had been a small portrait of a girl, done with twisted lines and colors that didn't end where their shapes should have stopped them. The frame was too ornate for the simplicity and subtlety of the painting itself. She'd glanced at it while walking between galleries and found herself stuck there, memorizing the girl's face, wondering what she was thinking.

Steve isn't subtle; he's not easy to miss. But she stares at him and can't figure out his story, either. She watches him covertly when he's not watching her; she examines him through researching his history and Howard Stark's findings; she studies him through footage of his fighting and the recorded chatter from the Avengers' comms. She treats him like he's a business that Stark Industries wants to take over; a new artist she wants to become a benefactor for. She likes him and can't figure out why. 

(She needs to know why before she can love him. It's how she's always been. It's part of why Tony loves her: he can trust that she _knows_ him, every inch of him and his history; he can trust that she knows him and chose him anyway.)

After their trip to Tony's house, and the night in the motel that they'd slept together (the night she slept the entire night soundly), she wakes up alone in bed, needing coffee. She stumbles into the kitchen in the middle of the night, her hair in a messy ponytail on top of her head, wearing Tony's pajama bottoms and a wrinkled button-down shirt. (When Tony doesn't come to bed, she sleeps in his clothes. It's part revenge, part loneliness.)

Steve's already in the kitchen, staring at the espresso machine. There are bags under his eyes and his hair is a mess. She smiles at him and he only manages to work up a half-smile in return.

"Arguing with the coffee machine?"

"Losing an argument with the coffee machine," he says ruefully. He braces both hands on the counter and his shoulders hunch. "Used to be I'd just boil water over a fire and dump in whatever grounds we had, then drink it fast so I wouldn't have to taste it. Now coffee tastes like milkshakes, and comes in a billion different names. And I promised myself this time I'd make it without having to ask JARVIS for help again."

"In your defense, this machine has more nobs and switches than most airplane cockpits I've been in," she says. He relaxes into his smile. "I can at least help with the coffee," she says. He leans to the side to make room for her at the counter and she starts up the espresso machine. "Do you want it dark and thick and almost grainy? Because I can make it do that."

He looks pathetically grateful. "Please."

She makes him a Turkish coffee and adds a couple shots of espresso. He sips it like manna. She makes herself a caramel macchiato, feeling vaguely guilty about it, but unable to withstand her cravings.

She sips her sweet late-night treat and watches Steve, who looks lost and sleepless and so terribly young. "Are you happy here?" she asks.

He stares into the mug of strong, gritty coffee in his cupped hands. "I don't think I'd be happier anywhere else," he says, with a trademark grin.

Pepper's been taking care of Tony's PR and Stark Industry’s press conferences long enough to know deflection when she hears it. She doesn't know if she should push with Steve; like a simple painting in a garish frame, she doesn't yet know how he works. "You're good at not answering questions."

He gives her a rueful shrug. "I'm as happy as I can be." Which, she suspects, might not be very happy at all.

"You're very good at hiding how hard everything is for you."

"Thanks," he says. He still looks young, but when she gazes at him again, she acknowledges that he also looks like a soldier. She hesitates, her coffee cooling in her hands. Steve's cup is empty, but he still looks wrung out; she wonders if caffeine even works on him. Maybe coffee is just a comfort food for him.

She thinks maybe Steve matches his over the top red, white, and blue frame. She thinks maybe the frame is big enough to overshadow this part of him most of the time. 

"You should ask for help more often," she says, rinsing out her cup and putting it in the dishwasher. (It drives Tony nuts. "Why wash it out if you're going to _put it in the dishwasher?_ ") 

Steve washes and dries his own cup. 

"It probably wasn't easy for men to ask for help in the forties," she says. "It's still not easy now." She puts her hand on his bicep, since when he leans against the counter with nothing in his hands to hold, it seems like the counter's all that's keeping him from falling. "It takes a lot of strength to admit weakness."

"You--you remind me of someone I used to know," he says. He opens his mouth to say something else, but just shakes his head. He leaves, all empty hands and lowered shoulders.


	3. doesn't leave things undone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve gets good advice. Tony likes robots. Pepper is Pepper.

Steve remembers Howard the same way he remembers everything from his own era: carefully, vividly, and repeatedly. He remembers Howard by sketching him in the last pages of his sketchbook, far enough back in the pages that Tony won’t bother to browse through them when he’s bored.

He remembers Howard when he sees the fever of excitement in Tony’s eyes, and he wonders that he’d never felt attracted to it in Howard. He recognizes similar facial features, the same hair, the same wit, the same sophistication. But Tony's quicksilver moods and unique recklessness seem to embody his own era even as it mocks Steve’s.

(Steve thinks sometimes, What would it be like if I leave this time, too? What will the world be like seventy years from now; what will I remember from this place, these years, these people?)

Steve remembers Howard carefully, vividly, repeatedly, and, when he sees Tony beaten down and tired and angry at himself, he remembers Howard critically.

He wonders what happened to Howard in the years after Steve was lost and the war was won. He wonders if it would have made a difference to Howard if Steve had survived.He thinks maybe Tony would have been better off, but he can't regret meeting Tony like this, no matter how selfish that desire is. (Howard had taught him that too.) He honors Howard by being brave and trying to get the things he wants.

Howard was one of the few people who knew Steve before and after the serum, and Howard’s the only one who didn’t seem to notice a difference. Like Tony, Howard had always been good at seeing inside of things and figuring out how they worked. Steve knows that all the important things about himself (being stupidly brave, artistic, big-hearted) have always existed inside of him.

The Howard that Steve remembers and the Howard that Steve knows from Tony’s silences and smiles and blank stares are not the same man.

*

Steve comes to them on a Friday evening, five weeks after their drive down memory lane in Pepper’s Sedan.

The only time Tony and Pepper can reliably be found together is Friday evenings at 7pm, because at that time, every Friday, Pepper hunts Tony down (‘for the good for the good of the company’) and forces him to sign off on all of the important proceedings that have taken place over the business week.

She saves the tech contracts and updates for last, as a bribe and a timesaving strategy, since he can get—understandably!—sidetracked when presented with innovative or inaccurate data. Given the competency level of their current staff, it's almost always innovative, but sometimes shit still gets done wrong.

They spend time together outside of that timeslot, of course, it's just that it's the only set time that they ever meet. Tony had come back from a mission once to find Pepper on the helicarrier at 7:13pm on a Friday, tapping her foot on the flightdeck and holding out a clipboard. She'd cursed him out and checked him over at the same time, all the while flipping pages and pointing to the post-it-note arrows indicating signature lines.

Clint had laughed and Natasha had helped Pepper with the papers and Coulson had looked on with admiration.

That’s probably when Steve learned that if he wanted to talk to them both at the same time, 7pm on Fridays was the way to go.

 

*

"I would...I would like to take you out to dinner,” Steve says, after You lets him into the workshop with a string of happy beeps. You’s taken a shine to Steve.

Steve’s got on his ugliest (and favorite) shirt, freshly-pressed slacks, shiny shoes, gelled back hair, and a serious expression. He’s also apparently lost his damn mind.

Pepper narrows her eyes at him. "We’re already dating each other. You do know that, right?"

"Yes, I know, that's why I—I wanted to ask—both of you?"

Oh.

Huh.

Wait, _what_?

"Pepper," Tony hisses in a loud stage whisper. "I think Captain America is asking us out."

"I can see that," she says, in that CEO-smile-voice that means she has no idea what’s going on, but has no intention of letting anyone else figure that out.

"Am I dreaming?"

"I don't know," Pepper says. "Dummy, pinch Tony."

"Ah—no, do _not_ —ow!"

Steve runs a hand over the perfectly styled lines of his hair and ducks his head. "So…that’s a no?"

"No," Pepper says, levering herself off of Tony's desk, "it's not a 'no.' It's a...a..."

" _Captain America_ ," Tony repeats, fending off Dummy's attacks, " _Captain America is asking us out_."

"I know who I am," Steve says, the lines of his body stiffening. "And also I can hear you. I could hear you even if you were in the next room and actually whispering."

"... _Captain America_."

"Tony's going to need a minute to reboot," Pep cuts in smoothly. "You've taken him by surprise, and you know he doesn't deal well with surprises."

"I don't—deal well with—what—have you even met me? I’m Tony freaking Stark, I—"

"Why are you asking us out?" Pepper continues, speaking over Tony's bewildered stammering.

"I like you," Steve says. His voice is more confident, he seems to be on surer footing here. "I'm attracted to you both physically, I think we are compatible socially, and I—I miss you both when you're gone. Put together those seem like good reasons to instigate more intimate relations. With you. Both of you."

Pep's eyes narrow. "Who have you talked to about this?" She's got a point. Those words sound like they belong to someone else. Steve the good soldier makes an excellent parrot.

"Um. No one?"

"Who?" Pepper asks, her voice like titanium.

Steve—Tony blinks to make sure he's seeing things right—Steve actually scuffs his feet on the floor. Tony bets Steve was just as ridiculous in the forties, since there's no way this much endearing idiocy is era-specific. Tony's watched old movies. No one in the forties looked that damned cute.

"I...maybe might have consulted with Agent Coulson."

Tony's pretty sure he isn't eating anything, so he doesn't know what he chokes on, but he definitely chokes on something. "Agent? You went to Agent for dating advice?"

"He seemed like the most knowledgeable party," Steve says angrily. He's getting angry now. Tony mentally kicks himself (it's a reflexive Pepper kick so it's extra pointy; her heels are vicious) for finding that hot. "Given his relationship with Agents Barton and Romanoff." Wait. What? Whatever Tony had been choking on is definitely gone, and it took all his words with it.

"He... _what_? Pepper? Pepper, have there been orgies? Have I been missing team orgies? Have we been dosed with sex pollen?" He takes a closer look at Steve's flushed face. "Have you been dosed with sex pollen? I bet you know that there's a procedure for that. If not, Agent can tell you all about them, while you two gossip some more—"

"Tony?" Pepper says, laying a hand on his forearm (right over a fresh sub-dermal implant, since Tony had been tuning up the suit's sensors while Pepper talked his ear off about stockholders). "Stop kidding for a minute."

"I wasn't kidding. There really are sex-pollen procedures."

She turns his chair so that he’s looking at her instead of Steve. "Steve's asking us out."

"I know that, Pepper, that's why I'm trying to figure out what’s wrong with him."

“I think I’d want to date him,” Pepper says, holding on to his tender arm, “as long as you were onboard too." Tony stares at her, because her face is familiar, and he's trying to tie himself down to what's happening to him, right here in this moment, but he feels like an unmoored air balloon.

"It's just dinner," Steve says. He's standing at parade rest. Tony wonders if Steve even realizes he does that. Probably not. "If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I just—I try not to leave things undone anymore." He gives a nod (sharp, militaristic; he's got this shtick more imbedded in his muscle memory than Rhodey does).

"Yes," Pepper says. Steve and Tony repeat it back to her like a pair of broken stereo speakers. Yes? "Yes to dinner," Pepper clarifies. "Did you have a place in mind?"

"Agent—uh, Phil recommended a place, ma'am."

She smiles (when did she start looking so much like a shark?) and says, "Splendid. Assuming there's no unexpected Avengers business, when should we expect you?"

"Tomorrow night? Eight? The restaurant’s a bit far, so I can call for a taxi, but I figured Tony would probably want to drive." Tony recoils like a snake because no one except for Pepper, Happy, and JARVIS are supposed to know him that well. "...or not?"

"We'll take care of transportation," Pepper says smoothly. "If Tony doesn't want to drive, we can always take my sedan."

"No. No, we are not taking your sedan, because you should not even have a sedan, I don't even like the way the word sounds. Sedaaaaaaan. Pepper, have you even seen my car collection? They're like shoes, the shinier and sleeker they are, the better, and you should never have just one, not if you have a big enough closet. Or garage, or whatever, metaphors are for the weak." He lets himself ramble, his chair still turned to face Pepper. Eventually he shuts up. "He's gone?"

"Yes."

"Did that really just happen?"

"You can have JARVIS replay it for you later."

He stares at his hands for a while. Pepper sits on his desk and kicks her heels. She used to do that in Malibu, back when she was his assistant, and not his—his Pepper. She'd sit for hours while he tinkered and rambled. Back then, she'd had to be patient in order to eventually catch his attention for long enough to get him to sign things or answer phone calls. Now she only waits for him when he deserves it.

"I love you," Tony says. She nods and lets him continue. "I don’t want to fuck this up. I've done...I’ve been in threesomes before. Hell, even foursomes. There’s a porn vid floating around somewhere on the internet of me right smack dab in the middle of an eightsome—my point is, I’ve tried this before. It doesn’t work.”

"Really? You've tried dating a national hero before?"

"Well, only if you count Elton John. Which, judging by your expression, you do not, so, no. But I've done the threesome thing, and it always—it always ends badly."

"Have you had any relationships before me that didn't end badly?" Tony thinks about it. "Any relationships that lasted longer than a night, anyway?"

"Well, if you're going to put parameters on the answer, then…no."

"You and me," Pepper says, her voice soft (Tony is glad that JARVIS is always recording; Tony will always have a record of how she says that, You and me), "we're the real deal. We're solid. Nothing that's going to happen tomorrow night is going to change that."

“I need to think,” he says.

She takes her clipboard—some of the papers still unsigned, which she’s never let him get away with before—and kisses the top of his head before she leaves. “If you decide to say no, that’s a no for both of us,” she says before leaving. “Never doubt that. Never doubt me.”

The door closes behind her and Tony, surrounded by his creations, his children, wishes he knew how to believe her.

*

Tony remembers Howard. Tony remembers the scent of whiskey (the good stuff) poured by the finger and then fingers and then a bottle upended by a whole hand. Tony remembers being briefed for public outings and being chastened for unseemly behavior in public (wiping his nose on his sleeve; nodding off; looking bored; running to his mother when he lost track of Jarvis).

Tony remembers Howard examining Dummy and giving Tony what Howard called constructive criticism. Tony is now the only one who remembers Dummy the First, which he cannibalized for parts. The current Dummy—the Dummy who has endeared himself to the entire team—had not been introduced to Howard.

Tony does not remember being held when he was colicky; Howard’s attempt to teach him to catch a baseball; the scathing letter Howard had sent to a teacher who gave Tony a C in middle-school for not paying attention in class; the difference between the Howard he knew and Howard when he still held out hope for finding Steve.

Tony did not know Howard before the war. He did not know Howard before Little Boy and Fat Man fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Stark logo printed large and proud on their metal bodies. He did not know the Howard who still held out hope that he would find Steve and salvage something good from the war.


	4. dinner, pizza, & a movie

Tony does not go on their dinner date.

Pepper arrives at the lab at six and spends half an hour arguing with Tony, because she wants him to change out of his jeans and t-shirt (these are his favorite jeans and t-shirt; they are his comfort grungy clothes; he is pretty sure she does not know that) and into something fancier. Pepper looks beautiful, but not too sexy; Tony's pretty sure she'd dressed up with Steve in mind.

Steve arrives in a suit. Coulson probably helped him pick it out, because it...it fits him. Really, really well.

Steve frowns when he walks into the room. "Am I early?"

"No," Tony says. Pepper sighs heavily and leans against his worktable. You rattles over to Steve's side, because he's a traitor, and Steve pats him absent-mindedly.

"Tony's just being stubborn," Pepper says.

"No," Tony says again. "I've got work I have to do. You two go; you've already got reservations."

Tony's staring at his work when he says that, staring at an array of fragile filaments through a range of microscopic lenses, and he focuses on the delicate interwoven pattern he’s trying to complete instead of looking over to see why You is whirring curiously.

"A raincheck, then," Steve says. "Or...whatever you want it to be. I don't--no offense, Pepper, but--"

"Tony and I come as a package deal," she says. "I'll call you later."

"Go, Pep," Tony says. He clears his throat because his voice had come out in a growl; he'd sounded like his father after a particularly spectacular bender. "Really. Tell me how it went when you get home."

It's only a few seconds before Pepper's heels click across the floor away from Tony and over to Steve. The door shuts behind them.

You rattles over to Tony's side and leans his arm over Tony's shoulder. As always, it helps to make him feel less alone. He might be broken, but he can still make things, and when they break he can almost always fix them.

"No helping from you," Tony says, nudging You away. "Your motor functions aren’t finely-tuned enough for work like this." Maybe Tony's motor functions aren't working that well either though, because he's got two wires grasped between rubber-padded tweezers, he's halfway through the braided weave that will complete the pattern, and he can't get his hands to move.

His fingers have begun to ache when the door to his lab reopens.

"You're an ass," Pepper says. Tony pricks his fingers with the wires, he turns so quickly, and he swears when he gets lightly shocked. He's going to have to start that whole damn thing over again.

Pepper's taken off her heels, and her sock-clad feet don't make any noise on the metal floor. She's traded out her dress for a pair of her own jeans and one of Tony's t-shirts (his second favorite comfort t-shirt, MIT, holes in the armpits and around the hem). "So, in retaliation, we didn't order any pepperoni."

Steve is close behind her, two pizza boxes in one arm, a 2-liter of Diet Coke in his other hand. Pepper's carrying plates and napkins and silverware. She always eats her pizza with a fork, but Tony can't ever bring himself to tease her for it since she does it so primly.

"We got one veggie one," Steve says, setting the boxes down on the two crates near the couch that serve as a table when Tony needs one. "And a meat lover's."

"No pepperoni," Pepper says again. She plops down on the couch, grabs a slice from each pizza, and settles in. Seconds later Steve nestles himself in the opposite corner of the couch.

"We should have brought beer," Steve says, halfway through his first slice, which only takes him one bite, because his mouth is big, and Tony's not thinking about that.

"Dummy," Pepper says, "please get Steve a beer." Dummy turns in a useless circle while You races over to the fridge, grabs a bottle for Steve, and then carefully rolls over to the couch to deliver it.

"Thanks, You," Steve says. He pats You on the claw and You purrs.

"You got pizza grease on him," Tony says, because that’s the first concrete thing they've done that he knows how to process.

Steve apologizes immediately and swipes at it with a napkin, which does no good at all. You rolls himself away and dunks his head in the sink, which JARVIS activates for him. Tony waterproofed all his favorite electronics back in his drinking days.

"Do you want to join us?" Pepper asks.

Tony stares at the mess of wires on his table, and then the perfect people on his couch, and his favorite creations buzzing around the room making utter fools of themselves, turning in circles the way Tony's mind is frantically revolving.

"Sir would love to join you," JARVIS says, because JARVIS is a traitor. "I believe it has been over twenty-four hours since he last ate, and he requested that I notify him at regular intervals should he neglect to provide sustenance for himself."

Steve grabs a third plate, puts a slice of meat lover's pizza on it, and holds it out like a peace offering.

Tony stands up from his stool--it hurts, he must have been sitting there since Pepper left him the night before, everything aches--and slowly makes his way over to the couch.

"You're both insane," he says, staring at his plate. Steve's fingers brush Tony's when he hands it over, and Pepper is smiling when Tony looks over at her.

Pepper turns on the television and JARVIS already has Adam’s Rib cued up. Pepper and Steve are both Hepburn fans. Steve and Pepper make idle small talk and Tony manages to eat an entire slice of pizza. When the movie ends, Steve leaves without making Tony explain himself, or apologize, or pretend he has any fucking idea what’s going on.

“Steve’s offer of a raincheck on dinner is still good,” Pepper says, when they're alone. “It’s all up to you. Whatever you decide will be completely fine. Take as much time as you need. Let me know if you need me to help you talk it out.” She leans over and kisses the top of his head, then crouches to kiss his forehead, and then comes in closer to kiss his mouth and pulls away before he has to respond. “I love you,” she says.

She takes the dirty plates and silverware with her when she leaves. Dummy puts Steve’s beer bottle into the trash can and the half-full pizza boxes into the recycling bin.

Tony goes back to his workbench and tries to weave things back together.

*

Steve spars with Natasha and Thor on alternating days, he goes on walks with Bruce every evening, and he leans on JARVIS and his neverending store of knowledge like a one-legged man with a crutch. He talks to JARVIS more than anyone else. He likes JARVIS; he's got more personality than any of the other robots or machines he's met in this time period. He figures it's probably because Tony made him based on a real person.

JARVIS is unerringly polite, sneakily snarky, and as circumspect as he can be when answering questions whose answers make Steve blush from his toes to the tips of his ears. (It's almost always Clint's fault. Felching? _Really_?)

Before he decided to ask out Tony and Pepper, he had done his due diligence. He’d gone over countless discussions with JARVIS (and looked at some pictures which had made him blush, but which JARVIS promised would be deleted from the server’s records as soon as he was done).

He even went to Phil, who looked at Steve with a mix of adoration and understanding that made Steve feel both strong and safe.

Standing outside of Tony’s lab on Friday night he’d reminded himself that he’d faced firing squads, jumped on grenades, punched Hitler, and died and been reborn.

He still couldn’t think of a time he’d been more nervous.

He asked, Pepper said yes for both of them, and Tony stared at his robots and rambled until Steve left.

Their first date was a no-go. Tony backed out at the last minute and Steve accepted defeat as gracefully as he could. He's lost many things; that doesn't mean he's entitled to get good things now.

Pepper refused to accept defeat. When they left Tony’s lab—both of them dressed for a nice dinner, perfectly put together except for the frowns on both their faces—she said that Tony was afraid of his own past, not of them; she said that Tony didn't know what was in his own best interest.

"And that's why he has us," she'd said, pulling up a menu on her tablet and picking out pizza from a place that delivers.

Steve just thought, _us_? over and over because Pepper amazes and overwhelms him and he knows that when it comes to Tony he's got years and years to make up.

"This won't be the only time Tony's going to do this," she said, checking her email. Steve's got an email address too. So far Tony and Coulson are the only ones who've sent him things. "He's going to push you away harder and harder the closer you get." She squared her shoulders and looked him right in the eye. "Are you prepared for that?"

"Yes, ma'am," he'd said, his spine instinctively straightening in response to her tone of command.

"Good," she'd said, looking him up and down with an appraising smile. "The pizza will be here in fifteen minutes. I'm going to change into something comfortable. When it gets here, do you want to go back to the lab with me?"

Steve sighed with relief and loosened his tie. "Yes, ma'am."

"I'm not saying I don't like it when you call me ma'am," she said, brushing against him as she walked past (even though the hallway was plenty wide; he could feel her warmth against his side), "but I also like it when you call me Pepper."


	5. clint comes with hotdogs

After the not-a-date that became a pizza date that became Pepper kissing him 'good night' on the forehead and Steve patting him on the shoulder, Tony reaches the point over-caffeinated that his vision goes blurry.

He decides to call Clint. He's too miffed to call Agent, Natasha still scares him, and Tony’s not ready to talk to Pepper about this, but he does need to talk to someone.

"Barton," Clint barks, when he answers his phone. Tony can hear wind in the background. Clint must not be using his StarkPhone, which, what even is wrong with these people; Tony’s phones compensate for wind goddamnit.

"Am I interrupting something?” Tony asks, when he hears something in the background crash.

“Roof barbeque. Wrapping up, though. Please tell me there's Avengers business, so I can get out of clean-up duty?"

Tony spins a screwdriver in circles on top of his workbench. "How long have you been fucking Romanoff and Agent?" Clint laughs, which makes Tony want to throw the screwdriver at his face (which is less violent than it sounds, since Clint always catches Tony’s projectiles and then throws them again so that they stick somewhere cool; usually in the wall or ceiling or once—only once!—through the eyeball of a Vermeer portrait. Pepper's not Clint's biggest fan).

"Have you been picking up SHIELD scuttlebutt? There's been rumours about us for years, Tony. When I brought Natasha in apparently there was a betting pool about what kind of arrangement we had going—"

"I know it's not just a rumour."

"Did you read about it in 'Superhero Weekly?’”

"Steve talked to Agent." There's silence on the other end, then Tony hears a door close and the sound of wind cuts off.

"Well, shit. Coulson would tell Steve everything. Especially if he asked while he was wearing the suit."

"So how long's your super spy orgy been going on?"

Clint laughs; he must be in a stairwell because it echoes. "Me and Coulson starting fucking about a week after we met. A few years later I went off the grid for four months, going after Tasha, and—things developed there." There's dead air again on Clint's end.

Tony's workshop is whirring quietly around him. There's nothing for his robots to actually work on, so JARVIS must be making up errands for them to do. He sets the screwdriver on the floor and Dummy picks it up and gives it back.

"But how does it work?" Tony asks. “It's been years for you. How does it—how hasn't it..."

"Fallen apart? Imploded? I don't know. Sometimes it does. We generally manage to put it back together. Sometimes things change. Natasha broke up with us for six months after she went through a bad op, but she came back." There's a strain of gratitude laced though Clint's voice. "Coulson tried to break up with us after New York, but we didn't let him."

"But how—"

"Goddamn. If you want me to keep talking about my damn feelings, then I'm going to need booze. Have it ready and waiting. And no fucking whisky." Clint hangs up before Tony can say No, stay out of my space, what's wrong with my whisky, I don't know if I can talk about this face to face, you’re an asshole, thank you.

  
  


*

  
  


Clint appears in the lab like he always does. Tony looks meaningfully from the ceiling vent to the door and Clint shrugs.

"I brought hot dogs," Clint says, handing over a tinfoil wrapped package. "Where's the booze?"

They eat the hotdogs, a set of Dummy's smoothies, which Clint actually likes, and a bottle of tequila. Three quarters of the way through the bottle Clint explains why he doesn't drink whisky. His dad had. Tony says he drinks whisky for the exact same reason: Howard had been a fan. Now every time Tony drinks whisky (which he buys with his own company's money) he toasts a little 'Fuck you!' to the past. Clint mulls that over and says that if the scent of it ever stops making him feel sick, he'll try doing that, too.

Clint's lying flat on his back on the worktable. The robots stopped moving because Tony kept tripping over them, and apparently Clint's finally drunk enough to talk about emotions--and not just the ones involving his past painful experiences. Apparently it's harder for him to talk about the good things than the bad. Tony gets that.

"Phil asked me out," Clint says. "And I thought he was prepping me for an op where I’d need to know how to behave at a fancy restaurant. Halfway through dinner I realized what was actually happening, freaked out, and left without saying anything. Stuck him with the bill, too.

"I don't know why he asked me out a second time," Clint says, honest, open confusion on his face, "but he did. He laid out date parameters that time. Gave me a full mission briefing for our trip to the zoo and ice cream afterwards."

Clint bites his lip and Tony wishes they had lime to go with their tequila, which they've been drinking straight; he thinks about lime and salt and this one time in Cancun, anything he can pull out of the corners of his brain because—because Tony knows how it feels to be that confused.

Tony still has no idea what to do with Pepper, doesn’t know how to plan their birthdays or anniversaries or how to make her happy.

"Coulson basically taught me how to date while he was dating me. After eight months, we moved in together. He still hasn't let me buy a dog. I still can't make his coffee the way he likes it. He works too late at nights and when I come home from missions I'm a cranky bitch for at least twenty-four hours, but he—I don't know. We put up with each other. The sex is pretty good too," Clint says with a smirk, turning his head to look at Tony. Tony's slouched so low in his chair that the only thing keeping him from sliding to the floor are his hands, clutching the edge of the table, and his chin resting on top of it.

"Does he wear his suit to bed?"

"Sometimes."

"I knew it."

"Sometimes he wears—"

"I don't want to know." Clint smirks and takes another swig. "Then how did Natasha happen?"

"Most of that's classified. She broke my nose, but then brought me an icepack for it. We got an apartment in Budapest and ate shitty food and had sex on pretty much every surface—I mean, you know how bendy she is, right? Anyway. We fought and fucked all day, and then at night we'd go out and break up fights and shoot bad guys. Played at being superheroes. Vigilantes. Whatever." Clint's face twists. "Eventually Natasha let Coulson find us."

Tony takes the bottle from Clint before he can take another drink. It's not loosening his tongue anymore, it's dulling pain, and Tony—and probably Clint—knows that's not a good road to go down.

"Fucker checked me out of medical, brought me to his office, and asked me if I still—don't laugh at this, okay Stark?"

"Don' think I can," Tony mumbles. "Too laugh to drunk."

"He asked me if I still loved him. And I said yes. And he kissed me and said, 'Okay.' We did this weird—like, parallel dating? Thing? For a while? I dated both of them, but they weren't dating each other."

Clint grins and sits up after a couple of tries. "Me and Tasha sucked at dating each other. Eventually we asked him if he could plan our dates for us, not just our missions, and he asked if he could come along too, to…I don't know. Supervise? Natasha said yes. It took about five months before Natasha kissed Coulson, and then kissed me, and then took us both to her apartment and—do you want the sex details?"

Tony ponders. "Yes."

"Awesome, bro. She rode Coulson like a cowboy, made me eat her out after her came inside of her, and watched while Coulson fucked me. Then she did me with a strap-on, because I'd told Coulson that she had one, and he wanted to see it." Clint points a wobbly hand at Tony. "You and Pepper should totally try it, if you haven’t already. Anal pleasure isn't just for gay dudes." He hiccups. "Although maybe you are a gay dude. Half-gay? Gay for your country?"

"Heteroflexible. And Pepper has yet to find a strap-on harness that doesn't offend her fashion sensibilities."

"She can borrow Tasha's. Tasha's are pretty fucking hot.”

Tony swishes the tequila in the bottle and watches it until it makes him dizzy. "Do you ever worry that they'll leave you? Decide they're better off as a couple, not a—a trio?"

Clint's Adam's apple moves when he swallows. He stares at his hands (which are covered in scars; Tony had taken a 3D scan of them once when he was working on Clint's arm guards and could barely believe how well he still functions with the amount of damage that’s been done).

"Yes," Clint says, like that's the hardest thing he’s had to say all night. "I worry that they'll leave me."

Dummy rolls up to him and bumps his knee, because Dummy’s adorable and Tony had added a subprogram so that he’ll bump Avengers whenever they look sad. Clint pets Dummy on the head and says, "I just do my best not to let that fear stop me from enjoying every single second of it. Even the bad seconds." He shoots Tony a wry grin. "We all almost die pretty much every week anyway."

"You almost die every week. I'm practically immortal."

"I don't think you get that claim to fame when you're on a team with Steve and Thor and Bruce."

"I do what I want."

"Do you like Steve?"

"He's Captain Fucking America."

"Well, do you want him to be Captain fucking Iron Man?"

"Asshole."

"Captain fucking assho—"

"Yes, damnit. Yes. I like him."

"And he likes you and Pepper?"

"That's what he said, and I’m pretty sure he’s incapable of lying."

"I don't know about that," Clint says. Even cross-eyed and swaying Tony knows that Clint's insights are worth listening to. "I think sometimes he lies so good we just don't notice."

"Except you."

Clint shrugs. "So you all like each other. It's just one date. They’re cool that you postponed the first one because of your weird issues.”

“My perfectly normal issues, according to the therapist Coulson made me see that time.”

“Therapy is for the weak.” Clint turns his head and grins at him. “And I say that as someone who sees a therapist regularly, because I know I’m weak, and I’m working on it. So. Threesome with Captain America and Pepper Potts. Goddamn. I say go for it."

Clint stands up, one hand on Dummy's head for balance, and navigates towards the couch. After he collapses, he toes off his boots. Dummy fetches them for him and deposits them on Clint's stomach. Clint says, “Thanks,” and wiggles himself back into the cushions. Tony lurches over and sits down on the ground in front of the couch.

"Steve's a better guy than I am," Tony says. It's easier to have this conversation when he's staring at a blank TV screen than it is when he's looking at a person. "So is Pepper. I don't know..."

"Ask them," Clint says, turning over onto his stomach. One of his boots falls on the floor and Tony waves Dummy away. "If you need to know why they want you, when they could have each other, then ask."

“What did Tasha and Agent say when you asked them?”

There’s a long silence before Clint replies, “I haven’t had the balls to ask yet. There’s just…”

“You don’t want to ask why they want you because maybe, if they think it over, they won’t come up with a good reason.” Clint doesn’t say anything and Tony wishes he’d brought the tequila with him from the work table.

Tony waits until Clint starts snoring before he says, "Pepper promised she wouldn't leave me."

Clint, who apparently has sleeping-ninja-listening skills, smacks the back of Tony's head with his remaining boot and tells him to stop fucking worrying, because Pepper's a stand-up chick. He then rambles a bit more about strap-ons before falling asleep for real.

Tony's still awake, just barely, when Natasha slips in. She puts two bottles of water and a bottle of aspirin on the worktable and then leaves.

Dinner, Tony thinks. With America’s Golden Boy and the CEO of Stark Industries. He could ask them, maybe, provided there was a lot of wine, why exactly it is that they want him there. Otherwise he'll just keep his mouth shut and his fingers crossed and hope like hell that things work out on their own.


	6. bruce banner is no one's bro

When Bruce gets back from India with a suitcase full of tea, Tony restrains himself for a full three hours before ambushing him in the lab.

“We're bros, right?"

"No."

"Bruce. We're science bros. Everyone knows this. The New York Times knows this. Will Shortz had us as a crossword puzzle clue a few weeks ago."

Bruce actually stops staring into his microscope long enough to make eye contact with Tony. "We're friends," Bruce says, his voice heavy with emphasis. "Not brothers. And not frat boys."

"Got it. Bruce Banner is no one's bro. I'll let the New York Times know."

"I'll send Mr. Shortz a message posthaste," JARVIS chimes in. Tony fiddles with empty beakers until Bruce stops ignoring him. 

"Is this going to be one of those times where you forget what kind of a doctor I am and try to talk to me about feelings?"

Tony ponders. "That was my plan. However, I am susceptible to bribery."

“If you promise not to talk to me about feelings, I'll blow things up with you," Bruce offers hopefully.

Tony smiles and starts grabbing supplies. This is why Bruce is his favorite science friend. (Eh. Tony doesn’t like that as much. Screw Bruce; they're bros, and nothing Bruce says is going to change that.)

They set off the fire alarm three times. (You is always there with the extinguisher while JARVIS guides the water from the sprinkler system in graceful, steady arcs.) Most of Bruce's work is mathematical and theoretical, so as long as they don't take down JARVIS's mainframe, Bruce's work is safe. And Tony's never accidentally broken the mainframe three times, so. They're probably fine.

After the last plumes of smoke have been sucked away into the ventilation shafts (but not towards where Clint tends to nest; Clint gets very persnickety when tear gassed), Bruce flops down on the floor next to Tony.

"Your eyebrows are singed," Tony says.

“And you have feelings," Bruce says.

"Yeah."

"Do you want to talk about them?"

Tony twists to stare at Bruce. "I thought you weren't my therapist."

"I'm not. I'm just a friend. _Not a bro_." Oh, Bruce. So smart and so wrong. Tony will bring him around in time.

Tony stares down at himself: his fingers covered in sulfur and smoke, the arc reactor glowing through his threadbare Metallica t-shirt, the jeans with the holes in the knees that Pepper keeps threatening to throw away. "I don't think I want to talk anymore," Tony says quietly.

"Okay." They sit and look at the wreck of Bruce's lab. It's Hulk-proof, but that doesn't mean its contents aren't susceptible to violent chemical reactions. "I'm guessing this has something to do with Pepper."

Tony glares at him. "You're breaking the bro code."

"No such thing."

"And I'm not talking about Pepper. Or Steve. Or any feelings of terror and/or attraction that I may or may not be feeling. Towards both of them. All the time."

Bruce hums quietly under his breath. Other than his voice, the lab is silent. Utterly soundproofed. "You strike me as someone who doesn't actually get what he wants very often," Bruce says quietly. "Probably because you don't know what you want."

That's—that's maybe kind of true. Tony's been given a lot of things and bought himself even more, but he never felt tied down by his belongings. Tony had felt wild and dangerous and unmoored until Yinsen, until Iron Man, until Pepper. In Afghanistan Tony had lost a lot a things. He'd also been given someone's trust. Trust, and a reason to keep going.

"You can't always get what you want," Tony mutters.

"But sometimes you get—"

"If you finish those lyrics we're no longer bros."

"You get what you need."

"Traitor."

Bruce laughs at him. "You're one of the most amazing people I've ever met," Bruce says, heaving himself to his feet. "And you deserve good things."

"Pepper and Steve are good things," Tony says, not getting up.

"I think they'd prefer to be called people instead of things, but, yes, that's basically my point." Bruce offers Tony a hand and Tony takes it.

"You're the best bro ever."

Tony still doesn’t know what he wants. 

*

Tony freezes halfway through the living room on his way back to his own workshop when he spots Steve out of the corner of his eye. 

"...Cap? You okay?" Steve doesn't say anything. "You look...not okay." He inches closer to Steve, who's clutching the Molskine drawing pad Natasha gave him like a lifeline. "Are you sick?"

"Don't get sick," Steve says quietly, his first sign of life.

"Right. Well. That's good." Tony shifts his weight uneasily. "Do you have Kryptonite poisoning?"

"What's that?"

"It's a—a thing. Nevermind. Doesn't matter." Making references Steve doesn't understand is only funny if Steve gets flustered about it. "Is there anything I can do?"

Steve shrugs unhelpfully.

"Do you...want food? I can get food. Or water. Do you want water?"

"No." Tony knows what depression looks like, but mostly just because he sees it in the mirror a lot. He doesn't know what to do about it when it's affecting _Steve_. "Your—Pepper said I should ask for help more often," Steve says quietly.

Tony nods. "She's full of good ideas."

Steve's apparently run out of ideas of his own because he doesn't say anything else. 

"You need help," Tony says slowly. "And I'll help you. Because I'm here, and we're friends, and friends help each other, so." He looks around the room. "JARVIS? What makes Steve feel better?"

"Just stay nearby," Steve mutters, "if you don't have plans. You can do whatever you want. I don't need you to talk, or feed me, or do anything, I just..."

Steve turns his face away from the window. He's been crying. "I won't leave," Tony promises. He drags an armchair over to the window, picks up his tablet, and stays until Steve gets up to go to bed. Tony reaches out when Steve walks past him (he wants to pull Steve to him, pull him down to Tony's level, and kiss him).

Instead he pulls Steve's arm close enough to kiss the backs of his fingers. Just a brush of his lips, like he's pretending to be chivalrous. Something silly and small that Steve can ignore if he wants to.

Steve goes tense, but he touches his hand to Tony's cheek before he leaves. His skin is soft against Tony's stubble and even as brief as the contact is, it leaves Tony breathless.

He thinks maybe he’s figuring out how to want things that he can’t buy; things that he can only be given. Bruce’s (bro) voice echoes in his head and he thinks, _people_ , not _things_. 

*

That Friday, when Pepper hunts him down with her arms full of paperwork and her tablet full of Stark Industries updates, he takes a deep breath and says, "You know Steve?"

She raises an eyebrow. "Yes, I know Steve. Now sign by the post-it note arrow."

"This would be a lot easier if you'd just forge my signature," he mutters, scrawling a T and an S and letting the rest sprawl across half the page.

"Steve's an artist," Pepper says. "Maybe I can hire him to forge your signature."

"Steve's an artist," Tony repeats, signing his name a couple more times. "So we should ask him on some kind of artsy date, maybe? I can rent out the Met for a night. Do you think he'd like that? Or would he like the Guggenheim better?"

She takes the paperwork away from him, which is unfair, because he does better with multiple things to focus on, but the kiss she gives him when he looks up at her makes up for it. "Let's start with dinner. Leave the Met for another night."

"Yeah," he says. She gives him his paperwork back.

"I love you," she says. (Like every time since the first time, Tony makes a mental recording of how she looks and sounds and is when she says it.)

"You're my best bro," he says.

"Except for Bruce," she says, picking up the completed paperwork and straightening it up.

"Except for Bruce," he agrees. "Pep?"

"Yes, Tony?"

"I love you too."

They make reservations for three at an Italian restaurant and Tony pulls up every memory of _I love you_ when his breath goes tight and he hopes, he wants, he thinks: _Maybe I get to have them both_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find me on [livejournal](http://hoosierbitch.livejournal.com), [dreamwidth](http://hoosierbitch.dreamwidth.org), and most recently, [tumblr!](http://hoosierbitch.tumblr.com/)


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